The quick answer
You do not need to understand the whole game first.
A first character only needs enough information to participate in play. You can learn the deeper rules while using the character. That is exactly why My RPG Source puts Knowledge Cards beside unfamiliar terms and links those cards to the full Rules Codex.
Your first goal is not to create the most optimized adventurer imaginable. It is to make a character whose basic idea makes sense to you and whose sheet is ready to use at the table.
Before anything else: choose 2014 or 2024
D&D fifth edition currently has two closely related rules versions in common use. My RPG Source keeps them separate because details of character creation, species or race, backgrounds, classes, feats, and other rules can differ.
If you are joining an existing group, ask the Game Master which version the campaign uses. If you are starting fresh and the group has no preference, the 2024 rules are the newer version. Either way, use the matching builder from beginning to end instead of mixing rules accidentally.
The roadmap
Build the character one layer at a time
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Start with a character idea
Think in broad strokes before numbers. Do you imagine a heavily armoured guardian, an agile scout, a wandering healer, a charming trickster, or someone fascinated by magic? You are not locking yourself into a novel-length biography. You are choosing a direction.
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Set your ability scores
The six abilities describe broad strengths: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Your class usually makes some of these more important than others, so it is perfectly reasonable to choose a class first in your head and then assign your better numbers where they help that concept.
My RPG Source supports Standard Array, Point Buy, rolling, and manual entry. For a first character, Standard Array is wonderfully boring in the best possible way: there is less arithmetic and fewer opportunities to wonder whether you have accidentally invented a goblin accountant.
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Choose a race in 2014 or a species in 2024
This choice describes part of what your character is. It can affect movement, senses, special traits, resistances, languages, and other abilities. The terminology and some of the mechanics differ between the two editions, so stay inside the version your table uses.
Choose because the idea interests you, not because somebody on the internet declared that one combination is mandatory. A character you are excited to play has a remarkable tendency to survive more sessions than a spreadsheet you resent.
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Choose a background
Background answers the question, “What was this person doing before the adventure began?” It helps establish skills, training, equipment, and other parts of the character depending on edition. It is also a useful roleplaying anchor. A soldier, scholar, criminal, or acolyte may approach the same locked door for very different reasons.
In the 2024 rules, Background also carries important character-building choices that were handled differently in 2014, including where ability-score increases come from.
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Choose a class
Class is the largest mechanical decision. It defines the character's core adventuring tools and how those tools grow with level. Fighters are built around martial ability, Rogues around expertise and opportunism, Wizards around learned spellcasting, Clerics around divine magic, and so on.
Read the class overview rather than every future feature. At level 1, you mostly need to know what the class asks you to choose now and what you can actually do during your first session.
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Choose skills and other proficiencies
Proficiency means your character has relevant training. Your species or race, background, and class can all contribute different proficiencies. The builder helps collect them, while Knowledge Cards explain unfamiliar terms without forcing you to leave the sheet.
Skills are not buttons that only work with one type of action. They describe areas of training that the Game Master may pair with an appropriate ability when the situation calls for it.
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Take your starting equipment
Your class and background normally provide the starting package or choices that get the character equipped. For a first character, the offered equipment is usually the easiest path. You can learn the economy of rope, lantern oil, armour, ammunition, musical instruments, and suspicious quantities of ball bearings after you have survived meeting the party.
The Rules Codex includes a searchable mundane-equipment catalogue if you want to understand what an item does or compare edition-specific versions.
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Check the numbers you will use during play
Before the first session, make sure you can find Armor Class, hit points, speed, initiative, saving throws, skill modifiers, attacks, and spell information if your character casts spells. You do not need to memorize them. You need to know where they live.
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Add enough personality to make decisions
You can write pages of history if that is fun for you, but a first character only needs a few handles: What do they want? What are they afraid of? Why would they travel with the group? What habit, belief, relationship, or flaw might make a scene interesting?
Leave yourself room to discover the character through play. Some of the best personality traits are invented accidentally because of one ridiculous die roll in session two.
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Do a ready-to-go check
Scan the sheet once before play. Resolve any empty required choices, make sure the edition is correct, confirm your equipment and attacks, and save or export a backup. Then stop editing. At some point the character has to escape the laboratory and encounter a tavern.
The biggest 2014-versus-2024 creation difference to remember
The editions are close enough that many names look familiar, but they should not be treated as interchangeable. In particular, character-origin mechanics moved around. A 2014 Race and a 2024 Species are not simply two labels for one data structure, and 2024 Backgrounds carry choices that work differently from their 2014 counterparts.
My RPG Source therefore treats the edition as part of the character's identity. The builder, Knowledge Cards, Codex entries, saves, and exports are designed to keep that boundary visible.
Before session one
Ready-to-go character checklist
- Correct edition selected
- Character concept makes sense to you
- Six ability scores assigned
- Race or Species choices completed
- Background choices completed
- Class and level recorded
- Skill and saving-throw proficiencies visible
- Maximum hit points and Armor Class calculated
- Attacks or spells ready to reference
- Starting equipment recorded
- Character saved locally
- Portable JSON backup exported if desired
What should you learn next?
Once the character exists, do not try to study the entire ruleset. Learn the handful of things your character does often. A Fighter benefits from understanding attacks, movement, reactions, and equipment. A spellcaster needs those fundamentals plus the spellcasting rules used by that class. Everyone benefits from knowing how ability checks and saving throws work.
That is the philosophy behind the My RPG Source builder: the sheet is the map, Knowledge Cards are the road signs, and the Codex is there when you actually want to explore the neighbourhood.